OTOH, if JBoss would have announced a few months back that they would drop AS 6 and move directly to AS 7 (please wait for another 6 months or so) in order to incorporate some cool ideas and have the whole thing EE 6 certified then people would have been screaming their lungs out.

True

But on the other hand, I think most people (at least I did) expected when reading about the original plan (dropping AS 5.2, going straight for AS 6 and release December 2010) that this included Java EE 6 certification. Maybe it would have been more clear if the plan had been from the outset to go only for the web profile?

Talking about that, when was the decision made to only certify the web profile? Was this from the start, or when the deadline came close?

OTOH, if JBoss would have announced a few months back that they would drop AS 6 and move directly to AS 7 (please wait for another 6 months or so) in order to incorporate some cool ideas and have the whole thing EE 6 certified then people would have been screaming their lungs out.

True

But on the other hand, I think most people (at least I did) expected when reading about the original plan (dropping AS 5.2, going straight for AS 6 and release December 2010) that this included Java EE 6 certification. Maybe it would have been more clear if the plan had been from the outset to go only for the web profile?

Talking about that, when was the decision made to only certify the web profile? Was this from the start, or when the deadline came close?

I would say that this thread is the equivalent of some of us screaming our lungs out. This thread has been one of the most viewed/replied to over the last several weeks since the announcement of JBoss AS 6. I believe that 100% of the posts from people who are not JBoss developers have been pretty unanimous in stating that full Java EE certification is important and that we would be shocked/dismayed/looking for other servers if this will not be the case in the near future of AS 6.x, AS 7, or EAP.

I believe that the plan that was originally set out for AS 6 was to add functionality in chunks in the "milestones". Certainly it was easy to see that the functionality that is part of the web profile was the most important to add but early on there was the stated/understood goal of moving past that. I could be wrong but I don't believe it was until fairly late that the announcement of not implementing a full Java EE 6 profile was stated.

In one of the announcement posts/blogs about JBoss AS 6 it was stated for the community to speak up if there was value to us in the full Java EE profile. I believe the community has spoken.

I can't imagine that if you were to expand the sample size of people asked about this issue if you would see a radical shift in the sentiment towards a support of the web profile-only plan. Perhaps we should file a JIRA request for full Java EE profile in JBoss AS 7 and see how many votes it gets...

Certainly I think that if this plan is kept for the release of EAP 6 you would probably spend more time debating/convincing paying clients that this is a valid approach than the time likely spent to implement and certify the full Java EE profile.

You have to remember that just like many on this thread, clients don't see the time/effort needed to complete full certification. They do see the value though. It will be a natural reaction that once those of us that do work with JBoss clients start to explain this strategy that those clients will see less value in continuing to stick with a web profile-only JBoss server.

Who knows for how many this will tip the balance of value back towards moving away from JBoss to other servers that are "fully" compliant. You have to know that your competitors would love to point out that JBoss is "not fully compliant" and this would not be a lie. I would think it would be desirable not to give competitors that ammunition no matter how little sense some of the required Java EE services make to those developers "in the know".

Hopefully soon we might see some comment or change in direction on this from those involved in the planning of JBoss development. I think it is safe to say that those of us involved in implementing JBoss in the real world see this as a BIG issue.

Stuart has valid points but in all fairness towards JBoss, it is easy for users to click and button and vote yes because certification is better than no certification, right? Would people still click if the label would be "Certify AS 6 even if it delays AS 7 six months"?

There is probably also a difference of interest between AS 6 and 7 when you compare the developers and end-users. For developers, AS 7 is "the from-scratch-version-where-we-get-things-right-really-this-time" but end-users see mostly the same technologies as in AS 6. Surely, the truth is not that black-and-white, I'm sure end-users get better startup times, smarter classloading etc...

Is certification the only cause for delay? Maybe it is exactly the from-scratch approach that is the major contributor to delays.

Instead of contributing to and improving existing OSS components, integrating it and then certifying it, there seems to be a tendency to do it from-scratch. There is almost never a simple adoption. There may be many things wrong with the available OSS components but many of those may resolve with active participation.

From the user perspective, is there really motivation for a from-scratch-version of JBoss Modules instead of adopting an existing OSGi implementation? Or a new VFS instead of breathing life into Apache VFS? Or a total rewrite of Messaging?

I am as eager as anyone to see speedy releases of new versions of JBoss AS. However I would never sacrifice either product quality (by ineffective testing for instance) or by sacrificing standards certification. Too much of our software is rushed to market and then fixed on the fly at the expense of customers. We have lost our reputation as an industry that delivers only stable tested products. Can you tell I'm old school ?

The perspective I bring to this viewpoint is that of an IT Manager for a major BC municipality who chose JBoss because it was one of the few open source servers that even attempted to certify. I have done presentations to my peers about using open source software and the audience has always been impressed that JBoss offers the same certifications as the leading commercial application servers.

In my view, JBoss stands a good chance of soon becoming a supported J2EE platform for large commercial software systems such as Peoplesoft, SAP, etc. I believe that possibility would be immediately dropped if JBoss released any products that were deliberately uncertified.

Stuart has valid points but in all fairness towards JBoss, it is easy for users to click and button and vote yes because certification is better than no certification, right? Would people still click if the label would be "Certify AS 6 even if it delays AS 7 six months"?

There is probably also a difference of interest between AS 6 and 7 when you compare the developers and end-users. For developers, AS 7 is "the from-scratch-version-where-we-get-things-right-really-this-time" but end-users see mostly the same technologies as in AS 6. Surely, the truth is not that black-and-white, I'm sure end-users get better startup times, smarter classloading etc...

I don't think full certification of AS 6 is or should be on the table. If it is true that there is so much difference internally between AS 6 and AS 7 that would probably be wasted time anyway. Also it would be too odd that AS 6.0.0GA is web profile and anything after that (AS 6.0.1 or something) is full profile.

My concern is mostly for what will show up in EAP since I find that is what clients are using more and more. For the suggestion by Gerry that JBoss might show up as a supported platform for things like SAP, etc I would imagine that would only ever be JBoss EAP. Obviously EAP is also the "paying" JBoss clients so I think that would have the most impact for JBoss/RedHat as a company.

I think the options that we should be picking which is our preference are:

AS 7 web profile certification, EAP web profile certification

AS 7 web profile certification, EAP full profile certification

AS 7 full profile certification, EAP full profile certification

My preference is probably the third because I don't know how much trust I could place in JBoss EAP if it isn't first certified on the AS version. In my mind that would be too much "new functionality" even if it isn't really between the two. After all, if you make the assumption that AS 7 passing full certification automatically "certifies" any EAP version that includes it there is not really more effort involved in the third option compared to the second.

For us developers that can prove something works with some code that is fine. For managers that have to jusitfy things like spending money for JBoss EAP subscription there is a bigger difference between "the vendor said 'trust us it works'" and "fully certified".

Plus, you know that JBoss' competitors would love an opportunity to tell a potential client they are competing with JBoss for that "you know JBoss isn't fully Java EE 6 certified, right?" I just can't believe that JBoss would offer up that opportunity to their competitors on a silver platter.

I'm sure there is some "grand sceme of things" that probably includes releases of upcoming versions and full profile certification of those releases based on a few of the comments in some of these threads by Jason Greene. The problem is we don't really have a good idea of what those plans might be and the "JBoss AS 6.0 is web profile only" kind of came from left field.

Isn't maybe a very specific result of JBoss AS 6 not being Java EE 6 certified the fact that in AS6 JAX-RS and EJB don't work together as they should?

This old comment from a stackoverflow question puts it quite clear:

What complicated this particular situation was the use of RESTEasy's "ejb-integration" which retrieves the implementation from JNDI. This solution does not (yet) perform additional REST injections on the implementation retrieved from the EJB container. This will all be easier with the upcoming JEE6/JAXRS integration.

Any update to whether JBoss AS 7 will be certified for the full Java EE profile?

I see that in JIRA AS 6 is renamed "Legacy JBoss AS 6". I certainly understand the reasoning but having a definitive answer to the certification plans would help calm my nerves on the upcoming switch-over.

I thought about creating a JIRA issue about full Java EE certification to see how many votes it might get but hoped to have more direction from the developers that might make that unnecessary.

I am writing a blog post for our clients about understanding some of the JBoss versions recently or about to be released and came back to this thread which had good discussion. I was reading the specifics of the "Web Profile" specification trying to figure out a concise way to explain it and your message above about EJB/JAX-RS integration caught my attention.

From the reading of the "rules" for profiles it states that any requirements in the Java EE specifications that are conditional on the presence of combinations of technologies must be implemented if all the technologies are present. Granted that is just for the technologies that are "required" by the web profile but if you extrapolate that to any combination it would seem that if the integration between EJB and JAX-RS doesn't work that is a violation of the rule.

So it seems that JBoss AS 6 attempting to create a "Web Profile+" set of technologies is just creating more issues with what is "certified", "supported", and "guaranteed to work out of the box without you bringing down a production system".

I think at this point my suggestion to our clients is going to be to wait until the soon-to-be-released JBoss AS 7.1 or the JBoss EAP 6.0 so they don't have to worry about any of this and can just use something "fully certified".